Notes on the Margin
by Ceyrai
Summary: 5986. Hayato was a hardened Mafioso, so he had been the most surprised of all when he realized how gently he handled Haru, no matter how angry he was at everything, including her. / Written for the 50 Sentences challenge from LJ.


**Ceyrai Says: **This here is my first KHR fic, but not quite full-blown, though. Gokudera x Haru has become part of my OTP repertoire. Ahaha. In here I prove my skill in abusing commas, semi-colons, and dashes. Oh. Do I _ever._

**Notes:**

_Pair: _5986, implied 27K, a bit of one-sided 2786_  
Universe:_ Canon, various timelines (sometimes, TYL has happened, sometimes not)._  
Warnings:_ Mention of adult situations, a bit of language._  
Rip-offs:_ 1sentence theme set Alpha, from LiveJournal._  
Disclaimer: _I don't own Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, nor the theme set used. Props to the respective owners.

_Additional notes:_

First-name basis: In Japan (at least traditionally) people who are on first name basis have usually achieved a high degree of closeness with each other. Calling a person by his or her first name without honorifics like –san or –kun without earning this closeness is considered rude and insulting.

Haru's Flame: not sure what her Flame is – I haven't seen her card in the Card Game so I'm pretty much just pulling things out of thin air, here. Do give me a heads up if you have an idea, though.

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**Notes on the Margin**

_drama they constantly lived in_

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**1: Comfort**

Hayato always found himself incredibly irked when Haru was within a ten meter radius of the Tenth – the woman had no perception of restraining orders, Mafiosi-dictated or not; later, he realized that he actually liked it when she was within his, and only his.

**2: Kiss**

"Kiss my ass!" she had screamed at him, before he decided to completely disobey her metaphorical demand and kissed her full on the mouth, consequences and her sharp talons on his shoulders be damned.

**3: Soft**

Hayato was a hardened Mafioso, having been running around in the underworld for more than half his life, so he had been the most surprised of all when he realized how gently he handled Haru, no matter how angry he was at everything, including her.

**4: Pain**

He wasn't the type to admit he needed medical attention – several types of pride lived in him, after all, masculine and Mafioso and genius type prides included – but when she pursed her lips and pressed a finger into the purple and yellow bruise on his thigh without mercy, he practically begged her to take him to a medic.

**5: Potatoes**

"Who the hell is allergic to _potatoes?_" she asked him incredulously when he excused himself from peeling said tubers to go and do some fine-tuning on his Storm Room; she made sure he regretted that excuse by banning him from eating anything potato-related until he admitted his wrong and pledged to peel them for the rest of their life together.

**6: Rain**

They were seventeen when Hayato began thinking, rather self-depreciatingly, that Yamamoto was better suited to Haru – his calm, soothing personality was a complement to her peppy, eager attitude – and with deep chagrin he realized that even Yamamoto's element and Haru's name were complements of each other, so much that it was sickeningly poetic, and he felt more insecure about himself than usual.

**7: Chocolate**

Haru was four when she learned how to make chocolates, fourteen when she first employed this knowledge to show her feelings for a boy – Tsuna, and twenty-four when Hayato learned to make chocolates and employed this knowledge to show his feelings for a girl – her.

**8: Happiness**

It frightened him to understand that what made him happiest these days was not a mission well-done, or a good whack on Yamamoto's head after one of the baseball nut's jokes about him, or indeed, a sincere word of praise from the Tenth; it was watching Haru fussing about in the kitchen and knowing that no matter how grim his day had been, he would be able to look forward to this sight for as long as they lived.

**9: Telephone**

Hayato didn't care that all the calls were being sent to his voicemail – Haru was making all those delectable sounds and appreciative touches and little movements that he knew were to deliberately send him over the edge, and there was nothing more important in the world at that moment than her.

**10: Ears**

Whether she was blushing from embarrassment or from delight she didn't know, but Hayato telling her bluntly that her elfin ears made her all the more adorable even though she had been cursing them all her life was enough for her to stop hating them.

**11: Name**

She didn't think that calling him "Hayato" would be as much of a big deal for him as it was for her; for him to treat it as a mark of their closeness was a marvel to her that he was now so deeply ingrained in a culture he had only started living in four years back.

**12: Sensual**

Whenever Haru heard the oft-told joke (or was it an adage?) that in heaven, the French were the chefs, the British were the police, the Germans were the mechanics, the Italians were the lovers, and the Swiss made everything run on time, she never could help the shiver that went up her spine as she agreed that hell, _yeah_, she was definitely in heaven with the way _her_ Italian made love to her; it definitely flummoxed everybody else that her eyes grew darker and her cheeks pinker whenever this joke was mentioned.

**13: Death**

She had carried a gun around with her for five years before she finally had to use it to shoot someone fatally; she hadn't known until that moment that bringing about death was as easy as pointing the gun and pulling the trigger like what she had done on the many targets and mannequins for practice, and she was eternally grateful that Hayato did not say a word as she cried hysterically into his jacket, merely stroking her hair with uncharacteristic gentleness.

**14: Sex**

The first time they had sex it had been awkward and painful and just plain embarrassing to both parties; the twelfth time, they were better at it, but did it rather angrily, complete with their usual mudslinging and furiously raised voices; the nineteenth time, it had been wonderful and mind-blowing and perfect, and only then had they fully appreciated how fun and meaningful they could make the deed.

**15: Touch**

There was a time when he shivered whenever her fingers brushed his bare skin as she wrapped bandages around some wounded body part or another of his – and he thought his shivering had been from disgust at being touched by someone whom he thought could make her stupidity contagious.

**16: Weakness**

Of course, that was before he began to admit to himself that his goosebumps at her touch was just another of the many indications that everything to do with her made him pleasantly feel like he was made of jelly.

**17: Tears**

The Carglioni family would rue the day they sent Gokudera Hayato's girlfriend to the hospital as a comatose, broken, bloody doll – it was the day when it was made known that seeing the Vongola Storm Guardian's tears equated total annihilation for those who had caused them.

**18: Speed**

Hayato did not know what turned him on more – the fact that Haru had blown away all twenty moving practice targets in eleven seconds flat, or the raw, savage triumph in her face when she was told that she was the closest to beating the current record holder (Xanxus), with a gap of thirty-seven milliseconds between them.

**19: Wind**

The moment she tore her letter of confession to the Tenth and threw the pieces to the wind, a smile on her face and tears making streaks on her cheeks, his respect for her grew – he had to hand it to her for being mature enough to know when to quit without complaint.

**20: Freedom**

He didn't know that it was her first step to breaking the shackles that bound her to Tsuna-san – the selfishness and desperate hope that made her cling to her first love even though it was clear that Kyoko-chan was the only woman for him.

**21: Life**

When Haru pledged to become the perfect wife of a mafia don, she hadn't known what that statement had truly entailed; she now looked at Kyoko-chan and her duties of subtle politicking behind benign smiles and gentle admonitions, and realized that she had made the right choice of not being the perfect mafia donna and becoming the perfect wife for a right-hand man instead.

**22: Jealousy**

They were seventeen, and he had been screaming at her for the umpteenth time not to get so close to the Tenth; for the first time she asked (demanded) why, and was rewarded by him turning red and spluttering something that might have meant that he didn't like seeing her chasing after other men.

**23: Hands**

"I need to hold your hand so that the hideout barrier will let you in," Hayato told her seriously, explaining something complicated involving DNA matching and radiation detection; when she complained to Hibari-san about this stringent security measure – wasn't she ingrained in the Vongola enough to have her DNA signature recorded into the identification mechanism of the barrier? – he had merely snorted and told her quite frankly that there was no such barrier with the current technology of the Famiglia, and that the Storm Guardian probably just wanted some excuse to hold her hand.

**24: Taste**

Hayato thought that Haru had rather strange tastes in things – literature, food, and most definitely clothing – but he was rather pleased by her taste in men.

**25: Devotion**

It was their common devotion to Sawada Tsunayoshi as a friend and as the Vongola Decimo that made them respect each other initially, not knowing this same devotion would fuel their relationship in the later years.

**26: Forever**

Oddly enough, it was Hayato who believed in love-forever-afters, despite the yet-remaining trauma about his parents' relationship, while Haru was more grounded to the reality that it could all fall to pieces, probably owing to the fact that her heart had been broken once before; it was this strange mixture of belief and non-belief that helped them contribute as much as they could to make it last.

**27: Blood**

Was what Hayato was screaming for in the Baravaggio compound when the said Famiglia made the mistake of attempting to assassinate the Tenth; it took Haru's slap on the back of his head to do what both the Baravaggio _and_ the Vongola kept failing to do – calm him down – and the Baravaggio would remember that incident to be the one where they learned that Vongola women were especially wrathful, therefore not worth crossing paths with.

**28: Sickness**

Hayato described his symptoms to a goggle-sporting Bianchi, the only one he was willing to bare such details to (Dr. Shamal would probably inject him with a "cure" that was likely to worsen his case, and Hayato had no patience to haggle with the doctor for the real meds) – arrhythmia, shortness of breathing, mild fever, and an odd mixture of heartburn and dizziness – and when he told his sister he only seemed to have this strange illness when Miura Haru was involved, he wished he hadn't, because she had only laughed almost derisively and told him what a dense little boy he was.

**29: Melody**

It gave Tsuna a strange sort of relief and happiness when one day, during a training break, he listened to Gokudera-kun humming an upbeat electropop song under his breath and realized that 1) it was the same song that Haru-chan had been softly singing as she bustled around the base that morning and 2) it was exactly the sort of song his right-hand man hated.

**30: Star**

Sometimes, on clear skied evenings, they would climb the rooftop of the main Vongola Mansion with a thermos of hot chocolate and one of the nicer models of portable telescopes that Hayato had bought on a whim, and have friendly contests of identifying the most constellations (Hayato seemed to win most of these) and making up stories about the shapes they saw in the sky (Haru was a tad more creative) – activities that were clichéd and sappy, but a welcome change from the drama they constantly lived in.

**31: Home**

Haru thought that she was the most out of place in their little Famiglia composed mostly of Tsuna-san's schoolmates and underworld veterans, and she tried to accept it as best as she could – until, in a surprise party Kyoko-chan had organized for her, Hayato told her that she had a place she could always return to, in them.

**32: Confusion**

"Well, I stole the Ring from the Pellagro but the Musconi caught up to me and stole it from me, so I asked Dino-san to back me up so I could steal it back, then the car flipped over and the Pellagro started shooting at us but I was busy with the Musconi's Sun Guardian so Dino-san had to call Hibari-san and Kusakabe-san to transfer the other Ring to the extraction point before the Baravaggio could use their Box Weapons to activate the machine that was going to destroy the Varia headquarters if the Pellagro and the Musconi didn't agree to the trade negotia-" Hayato cut her hasty, haphazard report with a hand to her mouth, before she could throw the debriefing into even more chaos.

**33: Fear**

When Haru met Shittopi-chan, Hayato's approval of the brunette grew (though grudgingly) – not only was she not afraid of what he had declared an UMA, but she was talking quite animatedly with it (her?), so much that Hayato felt quite peeved in the long run from being shut out of the conversation.

**34: Lightning/Thunder**

Lambo, aged five, was oddly afraid of the sound of thunder despite his powers of Lightning and love of explosives, and had taken to crawling into Haru-neechan's bed during their adventure in the future; five years later he had to learn to suck it up, because Bakadera had the tendency of getting to Haru-neechan first and kicking him out of the bed whenever he tried to claim the space between the Octopus Head and his favorite babysitter, despite protests.

**35: Bonds**

Yamamoto-kun had described Hayato as a "lone wolf" in the early months of their Guardianship of Tsuna-san, but as Haru watched the silver-haired man trade barbs with the swordsman, playfight with little Lambo, mollycoddle a reluctant Tsuna-san, even share a look or two with Bianchi-san (before promptly turning green), she thought that it didn't take too long for Hayato to form lasting friendships despite his belligerent personality – he had the crazy inner circle of the Vongola Decimo to thank for that, and Haru herself was grateful.

**36: Market**

Haru didn't know why Gokudera Hayato's market value was so high among the Namimori Middle School girls – what they saw in a violent Octopus Head delinquent with an obsession on his Boss was lost on her – until she herself was on the receiving end of his (albeit reluctantly) gentle side, the one that those girls had been hoping to see in their worship of him.

**37: Technology**

Hayato was a genius who invented new languages, created wonders like the Storm Room, and utilized the complicated Sistema CAI effectively, but, to his chagrin and Haru's amusement, she was still better than him in getting their more stubborn appliances to work properly.

**38: Gift**

Hayato and Haru fought each other long and hard for what he would get her for her birthday – he wanted to give her a velvet box with a certain diamond ring inside, while she wanted her very own customized Box Weapon with a matching Ring to go with it.

**39: Smile**

She couldn't help the grin she sported when she got _both._

**40: Innocence**

"You're not fooling anyone, stupid woman," he snarled, scowling deeply, even as she gave him her most innocent, wide-eyed look that all but said, _No, Gokudera-san, I wasn't the one who put the frilly bow around Uri-chan, the one that he actually seems to like and ohhhh would you look at that he's so cuuuute!_

**41: Completion**

It made him ache a bit inside, knowing that though he had been Haru's first kiss, first boyfriend, first time… he wasn't her first love.

**42: Clouds**

Haru, after spending years coming to terms with her obvious physical weakness that made her easy pickings for the Vongola's enemies (apparently, the her of the future-that-never-was had to be protected by two _teens_), resolved to pick up a skill or two even when Hayato insisted that he was enough to protect her – and to her utter astonishment, Hibari-san told her he would be the one to "sharpen her fangs", the day she learned of her Cloud Flame.

**43: Sky**

Sawada Tsunayoshi, to the both of them, was the Sky that encompassed them all, the Sky that they reached for, the Sky that they held up to the heavens – but to each other, they were the Earth that kept the other grounded and stable.

**44: Heaven**

"Do you think he went to heaven?" asked Haru, her voice broken, as she and Hayato held each other for support – Hayato _knows _that the Tenth was more than qualified to be in heaven, but can't help feeling that he should've stayed with everyone a bit longer.

**45: Hell**

Hayato felt a bizarre cocktail of smugness, exasperation, and pity when Haru came crawling up the stairs, mumbling about Hibari's training from hell; eventually, the pity won out and he carried her the rest of the way.

**46: Sun**

He concluded that it was probably delirium and feverishness caused by the summer's heat – why else would he stare appreciatively at the stupid woman prancing around the beach in her two-piece, modestly ruffled, well-fitted, blue bikini?

**47: Moon**

There they were, at the Tenth's inauguration, and Haru could have sworn there was no night more perfect than this – all the Family gathered in celebration, beautiful people in beautiful clothes twirling to the orchestra's waltz, and the soft light of the moon hitting Gokudera Hayato's hair and face just right as they danced at the fringe of the crowd, civil to each other for once.

**48: Waves**

As he got off the plane from Italy, he caught sight of what he thought at first was a giant sunflower frantically waving a placard with his name from the back of the crowd, and muttered, red with embarrassment, "Yep, that's my ride to Namimori, all right."

**49: Hair**

Haru, along with a few others, took major delight in calling Hayato Octopus Head – and even when she realized how wonderful and un-octopus-like his unruly hair felt between her fingers, she still couldn't help but titter the nickname when she was teasing him.

**50: Supernova**

Haru's love for Tsuna-san finally ended with an explosion – a beautiful supernova of realization that it was Gokudera Hayato that she had wanted for a long time, after all; unfortunately, it would take light-years for Hayato to see the brightness that came with it.

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**Ceyrai Says: **Whoa. I thought it'd be easy, but it actually took me two and a half days to complete this set. I'm a little peeved at myself, though – most of the prompts came in Gokudera's POV, when I had vowed that they would come in Haru's and Gokudera's POVs equally.

Still, this was a lot of fun and it sort of brought out the headcanon I've been having for them, especially gunslinger!Haru. My favorites were 18, 23, 32, and 41. There were some that were a bit icky to me though – 30 and 50, for example.

Tell me your favorites in a review!


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